Tuesday, March 22, 2011

There are some things in Texas older than me!!!! This lady reminds me of myself...could use some repair but the soul is there. Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells, TX....circa 1929, closed in the 70's. Hosted many celebrities and political figures back in the day. (Ghost tours have been discontinued....:-( Found out that through grants and other funding, she's coming back! Will be returned to her former splendor and the healing baths will also be reopened. Hope...if this grand ol' lady can have help found for her, it has to be out there for my son.These were shot on the way to see my son. With seven hours of driving each way and living in the second biggest state in the nation, there are lots of things to see....lots to think about. So relieved that my trip home was one with smiles and not tears this time.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Believe it or not, this is her excited face. Or, at least as much as she's willing to let mere strangers in an over-priced, crazy-crowded chain restaurant see. That before her is called The Volcano....I will spare you the clean up this morning after her body decided that she really didn't need it anymore. Irony: volcanoes aren't the only erupting thing around here. Being able to take my formerly neuro-typical, now PTSD identified (but mild, thank God) out for a mom/daughter day out...priceless.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

We have not disrupted our adoption (or actually dissolved is the more accurate term I hear) of our son. However, he has not lived in our home since 9-2-09. That was the morning he came in and very calmly and dispassionately told me,"I'm having thoughts that I need to hit you." Which he did. Just on the arm this time, definitely not trying to inflict real damage but more a scream for help. So I took him down to the ground and got him in a restraint and yelled for my husband to call the sheriff. I could no longer keep my family, including my son, safe from his escalating level of violence. Going to Orlando meant being able to share my story and not see judgment...not see horror in the eyes of others.....not feel like I needed to touch myself to make sure I had not suddenly sprouted a second head. That is what I took back to my sucky situation at school when people who cared asked how it went I would say,"You know, I was able to look other mothers in the eye and say that my son had kicked me in the face and tried to strangle me with the seatbelt all while my husband was driving 70 down an unfamiliar upstate New York highway because of a failed attempt at respite and they weren't shocked! They didn't look at me like I was just making it up because surely this charming twelve year old wasn't capable of doing that. THEY.GOT.IT!" To get to the title of the post, our sweet daughter Hannah, adopted at birth via domestic, open adoption. She was having major anxiety issues, stress breathing and even heading down the road of building her own explosive anger. I knew we had hit the edge when I saw our son laughing maniacally and jumping off of the deck with our daughter chasing him with a broom raised over her head. For the other moms at the conference, they get it. He is what I call a shit-flicker. The behavioral manifestation of Chinese water torture, get on your last nerve and dance a jig because it makes him feel powerful. We had come to the point where she would end up with legal troubles if it kept on. She would hurt him or get hurt. His behavior had imploded our formerly fairly happy family. Today, he sits in a state hospital for the manifestly dangerous. I can no longer count on both hands the number of times he's assaulted staff, mainly female as we represent the orphanage "caregivers" from the orphanage in Sumy, Ukraine. This will be his eighth placement in the last three years including stints in juvenile detention for assaulting his teachers, five state hospital placements (we have no mental health insurance coverage) and two residential treatment facilities (the last one was for just about twenty four hours until he punched me in the face twice at a court-ordered psyche eval). I speak to him everyday. He's doing better lately, no restraints, mechanical or manual for about a month. I can no longer sit next to him at visitation because he punched me in the face in June. I dreamt last night that I held him in my arms and went,"See, we can do this!" It felt wonderful. I will see him on Friday and I can't wait. He's my son.

Monday, March 7, 2011

It feels like I'm moving cross-country away from my family. Sucks but can't wait to get home to my Joe and Hannah.

Ali is pissed off...bless her heart. There are events in your life that touch you to the core...this was one. My family is now bigger. Truly, like being in the presence of celebrities (good ones....no one flashed their junk getting out of a car that I know of, although I didn't go with the tattoo group and there is that penis-arm waving wild mama so you never know)people I'd left comments for, that left them for me, even talked on the phone. Holding good thoughts that their retribution upon getting home is minimal if at all and that next year finds them in a better or even better spot. Love you guys, so, so, so freakin' glad I signed up.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

This is my new home for my vents...my pisses....etc. If you are new here, howdy...I will try to create a link to the back story from my former blog: With Love From Sumy that my Sumyite Radical child has discovered and very likely given out to his fellow patients at the psych hospital. Like my cell phone number and hopefully, not my address. I love my son but amazingly, he does not always think first and act second.

Right now, I'm sitting in a villa in Orlando as part of a huge gang of women who have gone before me, come after me or are somewhere near where I am in this journey of parenting a child of trauma. We represent mamas who've adopted from CPS, other countries, had bio kids, have step kids, grandkids, are foster parents and experience the gift of being on the receiving end of the anger at birthmoms, birthmoms' boyfriends, orphanage "care"givers, former foster parents, former adoptive parents, and anyone who've abused our kids.

This is our time to sit with someone who doesn't look at us as if we've got a third freakin' head because we happen to mention our son kicked us in the face or we woke up to a child standing over our bed with a butter knife saying,"Aren't you glad it's not a real knife?" Honey, you have not lived until you've hidden the knives in your house. Sucks....big ol' ones, but it is real and raw and sharing with other women who actually get it is SO FREAKIN' THERAPEUTIC! So come in, sit down and as long as you don't pee on the furniture, you're welcome.